Rock Band Unplugged is the first foray into the portable market by the Rock Band franchise. The game plays very similar to Frequency and Amplitude, two previous Harmonix games. In those games, and in this one, you play a song by pressing buttons in time with the music and note charts to earn points. The more points you get, the more stars and fans you will get. The more stars and fans you have, the more venues and songs you can unlock. When you start a band, you must create all four characters for your band. The game offers some very diverse, but limited options for customization. Rock Band 2 has a more expansive system, but this version isn't too shabby. I was not terribly impressed with the customization options, so I tended to leave everything at its defaults. During a tour, you travel to different cities and play in different gigs to earn money, fans, and stars. This can get very tedious at times, especially if you are like me and want to play those high-level songs right now. Money can buy you equipment, clothes, and staff. Again, I wasn't terribly impressed with the customization options, and the clothes are no exception. The equipment is, like clothing, aesthetic, and for people who love certain brands or models of instruments, there are plenty to choose from. Staff will add modifiers to the game, such as earlier access to gigs you would not otherwise have or more money at the cost of fans. Other notable staff can add more fans at a cost to money, or add more special opportunities. The staff could have been a little clearer, since the game tells you a short summary on what they do, but with no hard numbers behind them. For instance, on the money-earners, I would have loved to know how much more money I was earning by choosing them. The special opportunities I mentioned are offers such as "Earn an average of 4 or more stars on this gig and get double the fans" or such. These offers are completely optional but add some risk and reward to the game. Once you get very good, some of the offers will be no-brainers to choose, like the "quadruple or nothing!" offers.

Quickplay in this game adds lots of new variety. Among the available options are "No Fail mode," "Warm-up Mode," "Band Survival mode" and "No Solos." The "No Fail mode" does just that, allows you to play without the fear of failing. "Warm-up" mode, my personal favorite, makes it so that only the active track can miss notes, thus allowing you to play guitar on your favorite song the whole way through. "Band Survival mode" is quite the challenge; in it, the crowd meter is slowly falling for each instrument, and you must keep all instruments active. I found this to be the most challenging mode in the game, making the game more challenging without upping the difficulty.